“I’m just a country lawyer,” MSNBC’s host of Morning Joe (Scarborough) often says. Clearly, the very successful television personality and former Florida Representative is speaking tongue-in-cheek. Donald Trump used to be a friend of Scarborough and his cohost/wife Mika Brzezinski. When POTUS was campaigning, he was a frequent phone-in guest on their show. That relationship went very sour very soon, a common occurrence in Trump World.
As a result, the TV host said he was considering filing a lawsuit against the temporary president. It seems that the so-called commander-in-chief repeatedly escalated a conspiracy theory surrounding the death of one of the host’s congressional aides.
Scarborough told the Times Radio that he met with defamation attorneys in both New York and Washington, D.C. The anticipated lawsuit would be against Trump for repeatedly bringing up the conspiracy theory that Scarborough might have killed his own aide.
Previously, his attorneys said that he could not sue Trump, because a sitting president cannot be sued under current laws.
Sunday, Scarborough said that the idea a president could be immune from lawsuits did not seem to hold water. Regardless, after POTUS leaves office, the former congressman would be able to sue citizen Trump. The MSNBC host said during his interview:
‘They said, well you can’t sue the president because he’s the president and he’s got immunity — which I disagree with, I think there may be a challenge there. I may sue him in the future.’
‘I am going to go back to the lawyer after he leaves office and I’m going to make sure — because why should a president be immune from a lawsuit if he does something like that?’
Given that Scarborough is a television personality, he would be limited in a defamation lawsuit. The reason is that he is a public figure with stricter rules around his ability to sue others.
Although 45 began talking about the conspiracy theory prior to taking office, he ramped up his challenges to Scarborough’s innocence beginning in the summer of 2020, The New York Times reported at the time. Trump has frequently said that if someone hits him, he hits back 10 times harder. This was his revenge for Morning Joe criticizing him on air.
The disproven conspiracy theory involved his congressional aide Lori Klausutis’ death in his office in 2001. At the time of her death, Scarborough was in Washington DC. Plus, the medical examiner ruled her death an accident. As it turned out, she had an undiagnosed heart condition.
Klausutis’ husband wrote to Twitter requesting it remove Trump’s tweets about the conspiracy theory, according to The Guardian. In addition, her husband claimed that the president was perverting the memory of his dead wife. Scarborough was a Republican until recently, and last year a small group of his Republican supporters asked Trump to stop.
Twitter refused to honor the dead woman’s husband’s requests. Just recently, the company added labels writing that certain Trump tweets contained “false or misleading information.” Apparently, the warning did little to dissuade POTUS.
Eventually, Twitter decided to lock Trump out of his account and any other account he could access. It said he was inciting violence, and therefore, Twitter was justified in closing the president’s accounts.
January 6 was a stark result of Trump inciting violence. He urged an angry mob to storm and take the Capitol Building. They shouted “Hang Mike Pence!” and “Find Nancy Pelosi” with the intent of assassinating her. Six people died as a result of Trump’s directive to attack.
Scarborough also said he thought about suing Twitter for letting Trump post incendiary tweets, but his attorneys told him that the president was protected under the Communications Decency Act, Section 230.
The television host said his attorneys’ discussions with Twitter were the reason the company eventually added the warning message on the POTUS’ tweets.
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
